1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to the field of electronic article surveillance (EAS) and radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags and more particularly, to a RFID read antenna for a combination EAS and RFID tag.
2. Background of Related Art
The use of a combination EAS/RFID security tag offers an added benefit of inventory control capability along with the traditional anti-theft deterrence from the EAS technology. The combination EAS/RFID security tag may be attached to clothing items using a pin attachment mechanism. This attachment mechanism may be removed by a detacher that may employ a magnetic means to release the pin.
It is advantageous to read the RFID information when the pin is being removed. Furthermore, it may be of interest to enable the removal of the pin by first reading and verifying the RFID information.
To detach the pin of the combination EAS/RFID security tag, the user places the end of the tag in a defined center region of the detacher. It should be noted that the security tag may rotate about the detacher magnet region at any arbitrary angle. Therefore, the orientation of the RFID element with respect to the detacher center may be quite arbitrary. If the RFID element must be read in this position, then either the detachment orientation needs to be fixed in order to allow a fixed position RFID near-field antenna to read exactly at this fixed position or a new omni-directional RFID near-field antenna is needed.
Therefore, there exists a need for the development of an RFID read antenna which enables a combination EAS/RFID hard tag to be detached and read consistently and accurately at all times independently of the angle of the EAS/RFID tag relative to the RFID antenna.